Marathons & Sprints are both hard... for me
Photo Credit: Sarah Lee
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
“What winning is to me is not giving up, is no matter what’s thrown at me, I can take it. And I can keep going.” Patrick Swayze
Did you ever think that you would read a quote by Aristotle alongside one from Patrick Swayze? If the answer is yes then you are one interesting person and if the answer, which I imagine is more likely, is no then we are hardly suprised as many things in recent times have not been expected (unless you had the gift of seeing the future before the rest of us). We are all developing habits, hopefully good ones that will change how we live in the future, and trying to keep going but I think where I may want to add something to Mr. Swayze’s words is that sometimes we cannot take it and need others to keep us going.
‘It’s a marathon, not a sprint’. Have you heard that phase at all in recent weeks or in recent years. Sometimes people may also say ‘It’s a long haul, not a short haul flight’. Now as a person who is neither particularly good at running or at enjoying flying I don’t find either particular helpful. I am a walker. I like to have my feet on the ground (not flying) and finding a pace of walking through this world (not a marathon or a sprint speed). Maybe you might find some of the following resonates with you. When I walk I like to find a rhythm that feels like I am part of what I am walking through; not too quick to miss and not too slow to feel like I am not getting somewhere. I like to have targets or places in view or a destination that keeps me heading where I want to go.
Many years ago, normally during hitch-hiking seasons, I would walk hundreds and hundreds of miles by choice and it became like a physical expression of prayer. What might be your physical expression of prayer at the moment? More recently, whilst on a walking retreat on the north Devon coast path, I could often see where I was going and knew when I would make my times of rest and renewal and recovery to keep pushing on. What times of rest and renewal and recovery do you have at the moment? (Both of these walking experiences were filled with moments when I just stopped anyway, either because something was worth stopping for or I was knackered). I am profoundly grateful to have been able to walk and continue to appreciate this gift every single day. And to walk at the moment or any other time can mean the physical act or it can mean that spiritual sense of strength and focus and determination needed for the journey.
There are many seasons of our lives when we need to keep ‘walking’ and keep going; whether in a coronavirus lockdown or struggling with the grieving process or with an aim we are trying to achieve or a relationship we are working at trying to heal or a treatment or a recovery of illness or a recovery from addiction or a difficult time of mental health or to follow a calling or… so many seasons and so many times when we just keep walking at the pace we are able and sometimes we just need to find that pace for now.
I think it is important to be able to learn what it means to just be with ourselves as well as knowing when we need others. To be both encouraged to keep going and when we feel alone to know that God is with us.
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
1 Thessalonians 5.11
“Don’t panic. I’m with you.
There’s no need to fear for I’m your God.
I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you.
I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.”
Isaiah 41.10 (The Message)
Some of you reading this are fast at sprinting and some of you are incredible at running and running and running for 26 miles. At different times of my life it felt like I was more doing 5K-to-Couch and was very good, I made it to my couch in hours not weeks! Whatever pace you feel like you are going at right now, we are all heading somewhere and maybe you can do it on your own at the moment or maybe you need some help. It is my hope and prayer that you will keep going and that you will do it both on your own and with others. This is a walk, this is a pilgrimage to somewhere new (from somewhere new) that we are making together and will do together. Just keep walking.
All I had was my feet on the ground
I heard whispers that down the corridor was an answered question.
On reflection, I decided that I was only visible out of the shadows
so I gathered my bag of thoughts and moved in and out
making my way to the portal
with rumours of lies and distorted imaginations crowding in
with my strength weakening and images telling me to give in.
Suddenly I stood in a sacred space
waved my arms and reached for something solid
but all I had was my feet on the ground
I turned around and shouted, just to make a sound
that may come travelling back to set me right
but all I had was my feet on the ground
I was moving but still stood
I was breathing but could not grasp any other life
all this way and still no answer
I cried out to make sense of where I had been led
but all I had was my feet on the ground.
I then heard whispers that down the path there was an answered question.
So I kept following until a speck of light transformed the scene
I reached out to the colour and wrapped it around my being
and I was standing where I had begun but outside the shadows
I was visible and vulnerable and then the answer.
All I had was my feet on the ground.
Turn swiftly, with all your heart, to God and be embraced. It is in Christ where community can be found,
where disconnected parts, exiled from each other, can collide back together
both beyond and within time and space.
From the Incredible Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes